Mychael
Masculine · “Hebrew mi kael”
Mychael is given to both — 1,348 boys and 242 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Michael was the most common boy's name in America for forty-four years. No other name in the records has held the top position for anything like that long, and the respellings are what saturation looks like.
How old is the name Mychael?
Mychael first appears in US birth records in 1972 — 53 years ago. The typical Mychael alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 1,300 people named Mychael are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mychael most popular?
Mychael peaked in 1989, reaching #1162 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 9,533 places below that high. See the whole 1989 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Mikael to Mychael
The story of Mychael
From 1954 to 1998 Michael was the number one name for American boys in every year but one, which is the longest run the records contain. A name at that level stops being a choice and becomes a default, and the predictable result is pressure on the spelling: parents who wanted the sound without the ubiquity began altering the letters, and Mychael, Michal, Mikael, Mychal and Michaell all appear in the 1970s and 1980s. The same thing happened to Jennifer, Jessica and Ashley on the girls' side within a few years of their own peaks. Respelling is what a name stock does when a single name occupies too much of it, and the variants cluster tightly around the years of maximum saturation rather than around the peak itself.
Meaning
Hebrew mi kael, who is like God
From Hebrew Mikael, a rhetorical question meaning who is like God, borne by the archangel. Mychael substitutes y for the first i and changes nothing about the sound. The peak of this spelling is 1989.
How the name formed
- Mikael
- Michael
- Mychael
Related forms: Michael · Mychal · Mikhael
Pronouncing Mychael
MY-kul
Two syllables, stress on the first. Michael and Mychael are homophones; the y is a spelling device.
Nicknames for Mychael
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1972
- Most boys named
- 198983 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1162reached in 1989
- Change vs 2023
- −25.0%6 in 2025, from 8
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Mychael in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Michael in English — spelling variant
- Mychal in English — spelling variant
- Mikhael in Hebrew — same name
Mychaels among us
people named Mychael are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Mychael
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mychael
- #10695
- Mychael on the 2025 chart
- #24
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mychael went to 6 boys in 2025, but Michael is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 8,100, which makes it the 24th most-given boys’ name of the year — 10,671 places above the chart.
- Michael8,094
- Mychael6
About 1 boy in 211 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 284,679 for Mychael itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Lemar test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mychael's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lemar climbed just as high around 1900, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lemar's path sketches the road Mychael is walking now.
Mychael sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Mychael beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mychael in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Mike and Mickey are two of the most portable short forms in English.
- The Hebrew meaning is documented and exact.
- The name is recognized everywhere in the Western world.
- Michael is the standard spelling by an overwhelming margin.
- The y will be queried every time.
- The 1989 peak dates this variant.
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Mychael
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mychaels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Mychael are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mychael?
- Mychael is one of 2 recorded spellings. Michael is the more common one — 8,094 births in 2025 against 6 for Mychael.
- How popular is the name Mychael in 2025?
- Mychael ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mychael?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Mychael — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mychael with classmates?
- Mychael will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mychael
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mychael? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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